Christ's voluntary death as deception of the devil

By not granting me equality willingly, you grant me the greater thing against your will. The one you think you are disparaging for weakness, you are actually declaring stronger than the Father. For I, without even being urged on, rescued the souls held down in Hades. “Lord,” it says, “you brought up my soul from Hades” (Psalm 30:3). But he, even when urged on, did not free my troubled soul from the evils hanging over it. But let it not be so! For neither was the Father sparing or powerless when he did not free me from the passion, nor did I, in refusing the passion, ask for the cup to pass by. If the passion were involuntary, then I truly feared. But if the death was self-chosen, then I only appeared to fear, so that by deceiving the devil I might set humanity free. The devil did not see this, and so he dragged me down, intending to swallow me, not knowing that he would have to vomit up even those he had already swallowed. For the moment I stood in Hades, I stripped his tombs and laid bare his graves. I laid them bare not by fighting openly, but by invisibly providing the resurrection. I was releasing no one, and yet all were being released. I was saying nothing, and yet freedom was being proclaimed. I was calling no one, and yet all were running together. For the moment I stood there as king, the tyrant was despised. I shone as light, and the darkness was dissolved. You could see every prisoner looking at freedom, every captive dancing at the resurrection—so much so that the dead themselves were marveling at me for the victory and mocking death for its defeat, saying: “Where, death, is your sting? Where, Hades, is your victory?” (Hosea 13:14). And so it is. For all that has been said, let us send up glory to Christ, the king of all, for to him belong glory, honor, and worship, with the undefiled Father and the all-holy Spirit, to the ages of ages. Amen.